Lahai Review

Where Process was a room, Lahai is the sky, and that shift is deliberate. Sampha took his grandfather's name, had a daughter, and made an album about lift, birds, generations and the strange physics of loving someone who came after you. The playing is extraordinary. Rhythms borrowed from drum and bass are slowed and swung until they float, chords keep sliding somewhere unexpected, and Spirit 2.0 and Only build from almost nothing into real euphoria.

Suspended is the highlight, a song about hanging in the air that actually hangs. What is missing is the sharp edge. The writing here is more diffuse and more abstract than the debut, images of flight recurring in place of the plain devastating detail of a piano in a dead woman's house, and the tracks tend to hover rather than land. It rewards patience and repeat listens, which is another way of saying it does not grab you. A beautiful record that you admire more often than you reach for.